Lakers dominate Spartans in sweep

On Saturday night, however, the Lake Superior State Lakers showed they were up to the challenge.

In front of a raucous home crowd of nearly 3,500, the Lakers scored four goals in the first period en route to a 7-3 victory over Michigan State on Great Lake State

Weekend.

“The crowd had a huge impact on our game," Lakers coach Damon Whitten said. "Huge credit to them and also to our student section with their energy and enthusiasm. This is a big year for us, celebrating 50 years, and also a big weekend, with it being Great Lake State Weekend. It was huge for our team to be able to feed off that crowd.”

Lake Superior opened the scoring on a power play goal, when freshman Max Humitz tipped the puck past Spartan goaltender John Lethemon. Humitz had 2 goals on the weekend. The Lakers finished 2-for-4 on the power play Saturday night and 6-for-16 on the weekend.

“As you look around the nation, special teams are going to be extremely important, a ton of special teams” said Whitten. “I give a lot of credit to our assistant coaches [Rich Metro and Doug Holewa.] We spend a lot of time on it, knowing how important it was. I thought our penalty kill was tremendous, and obviously our power play cashed in quite a bit.”

The Lakers would continue to put a barrage on Lethemon, with a goal by Gage Torrel and two goals by captain Gus Correale, one of which came shorthanded to build a four goal lead going into the locker room after the first period. Lethemon would not return and was replaced by Ed Minney, who had allowed six Laker goals Friday night.

The change of netminder seemed to spark Michigan State, as the Spartan offense would finally solve Laker goaltender Gordie Defiel with two quick goals partway into the second period to cut the Lakers lead to 4-2.

The Lakers would respond three minutes later with a goal from Anthony Nellis.

Later in the period, the Lakers would add to their lead when Mitch Hults put a shot over the far shoulder of Minney on the power play.

Michigan State would get themselves on the board again late in the second period to get some momentum going into the locker room. The Lakers defensive corps, however, would double down on the Spartans to keep them off the scoreboard in the third period.

“I wasn’t a big fan of our second period,” said Whitten, crediting Michigan State for their effort in that period. “We haven’t been in a situation to protect big leads like that very often the past few seasons.

You’re concerned about momentum going into the third period, but for a young club with only one senior in the lineup, I thought we responded well and shut things down the rest of the game.”

The Spartans would go 0-for-7 on the power play Saturday night to finish 1-for-18 on the weekend. Their best chance for a power play tally on Saturday came when Logan Lambdin drilled a shot on net, only to be denied by a diving glove save by Defiel.

Lake Superior would add one more goal late in the third period, when J.T. Henke dug a puck out of the corner that bounced off of Michigan State defenseman Anthony Scarsella and goaltender Minney into the net.

“It’s great to have two wins to start the season,” said Whitten on his teams start. “We don’t have a long exhibition season to set up special teams or establish chemistry, so a lot of credit to our players to understand the concepts we are trying to put in and go execute them.”

The Lakers hit the road for a series against WCHA foe Alabama-Huntsville this coming weekend before

returning home for a league series against the University of Alaska on Oct. 28-29. That weekend is the annual Pink in the Rink weekend.